There has been a 40% increase in viewers for the Premiership with an average live weekend TV audience of 358,000 across the regular season.

A combined season audience of 7.88 million watched Aviva Premiership Rugby clubs live on BT Sport this season, compared to 6.14 million for the same period last year. The biggest match audience was recorded in October when 276,000 people tuned in to watch Leicester Tigers win at London Wasps.

"When you look at the audience for the Aviva Premiership highlights show on ITV each weekend (434,000) it means almost 800,000 people are watching Premiership rugby each weekend," said Dominic Hayes, the commercial rirector at Premiership Rugby.

"The numbers from pubs and clubs, and through BT Sport's app and website, are in addition to this , so the total TV audience is actually much higher."